


There to Remind You

by helena_s_renn



Series: Leaning, Learning [3]
Category: Def Leppard, Music RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Coping, Events surrounding Steve Clark's death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Polyamorous Character, Rimming, Scar-Licking, Sex, Smoking, Switching, other Def Leppard members mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16378325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: Two-plus years after Steve, some members of Def Leppard are coping better than others. Rick takes matters into his own hands, for one night anyway.Rick couldn't have said anymore, which gig it was   early on in the tour   where he was made to understand that he wasn't the only one affected by the display, the trust, and frankly, the contact...





	There to Remind You

**Author's Note:**

> No disrespect intended toward any member of Def Leppard, past or present, only greatest admiration. 
> 
> Beta by ChristianHowe. Any remaining errors are mine.

-1993 

It had been 15 years since he'd been made Leppard. Fourteen since Sav and Steve had inducted him into their private little after-hours club. Ten since they'd had to let go of one guitarist and find another, so much foreshadowing he could hardly stand to think about it. Almost nine since the wreck that some would say made Rick less than a whole man, which he'd had to prove to everyone but mostly to himself, was wrong. Two since the loss of another of them, out of control in so many ways. 

He'd learned to play minus a limb and creatively so, in his own assessment. They'd   collectively   had to learn to function without Steve. No electronic jerry-rigging could stand in then, no amount of practice replaced a heart and a brain and the hands that facilitated their expression. It still freaked him out sometimes, though, hearing riffs or bits of solos that he couldn't describe any better than "so Steve" coming off Viv's fingers. But why should it? It was part of what made him the right man for the job. 

Pre-sound check, Rick arrived at the near-empty venue to work with his drum tech and the crew who ran the lift. During their last gig, his snare mic had apparently slipped and gone haywire and they needed to determine if the problem was with the mic itself, the transmitting range, or what. 

The circular platform's hydraulics whined to life. Barely big enough to hold his kit, which was strapped down solid unlike Rick himself, it rose smoothly, swaying just the slightest bit when they were up there jamming, on what he knew were scarily slender reinforced steel poles. Unless the entire contraption gave way, he was in no real danger of anything other than vertigo.

It was Sav who played Russian roulette with his own life every concert. The first time they'd used this set extension, Rick had ridden it alone. The next night, Sav had jumped the short rail around it and their roles were set, the rhythm section on high.

Up there, it seemed like they performed on a dinner plate of increasing smallness. The only way for Sav not to lose his balance with a bass strapped to him and the undeniable dizziness was to lean backward. He did: his back to Rick's back. Or more accurately: Sav's arse planted in Rick's thoracic spine. The first time he did that, Rick was scared for both their lives. Hell, he always was, not that he'd let it stop him. Sav would press against him harder and harder till Rick had to lean forward over his kit or risk letting Sav fall. It was one hell of a balancing act, one could say. 

Normally he'd brace himself against the extra weight with his feet, but his feet were his drumming and he couldn't stop the music. He took the pressure in his hips and lower back and damn, if that didn't remind him of some things he hadn't thought about in a long time. The memories were always there, buried on a high shelf somewhere between the whole long summer of lead-up and their first album. Rick hadn't been able to get near the recollection of the semi-innocent encounters Sav and Steve had been a part of, for years. Not sober. The plethora of warring, unresolved hunger, sadness, rage, and powerlessness always overtook him in a vortex of chemical numbing agents. He was never proud of his actions when that happened. 

Truth be told, no matter what he said on public record, he didn't know when or if he'd ever be fully recovered. Never, probably. As for Sav, he kept himself to himself. Whatever had continued to go on between him and Steve much longer than Rick could handle, once things began to slide downhill on a sharper and sharper incline, he didn't talk to Rick about it any more than Rick ever brought it up with him. Not for lack of wanting to. But it seemed somehow disrespectful. 

Rick couldn't have said anymore, which gig it was   early on in the tour   where he was made to understand that he wasn't the only one affected by the display, the trust, and frankly, the contact, as they pressed together, bodies jiggling from the efforts of playing their respective instruments, almost unbearably warm so close to the lights. Thus far, he'd said and done nothing about it, nor had Sav, and he'd grown impatient waiting show after show for the anticipated catharsis to be unleashed. 

Today, Rick had decided, was the day to man up. He needed to mention something else as well. The reception of this news, he was less sure of. Permission to share it hadn't been granted, exactly, but it was one more thing he was tired of dancing around. Viv had fallen hard, and his distraction had one cure. More precisely, he'd taken one good look at Sav and practically popped his zipper but feelings had followed as they tended to do, something Rick had only learned after he'd been been deep into a post-coital lull with Lepp's latest guitarist. Viv had been drunk and they'd never spoken of it again, yet some things could not be unsaid. He would do his bit to help them both. Well, he hoped it would help. He was willing to shoulder the responsibility, either way.

So he'd asked Sav over breakfast if he'd show up to sound check a little earlier than normal on the pretext that he also rode up on the lift. 

First things first. They met in front of the drum riser, where Rick brought up one topic by saying to Sav, out of the others' hearing, "You've gotta do something about Viv." 

"Do something...? Whatever do you mean?" Sav. As if butter   or sugar   wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Dude, seriously." Living in Southern California had influenced Rick's slang already. "Don't play dumb with me."

"The man is as straight as they come," Sav finally said after Rick stared at him relentlessly for a full ten seconds, "and married." 

"Semantics. So are Joe and Phil." Even Rick could admit, that was probably irrelevant, so he got to the point. "As for Viv, I can tell you with expert knowledge that you're wrong." 

"Oh? He's _not_ married?"

Rick rolled his eyes and took a step closer. "No, yeh daft sod. Do I have to spell it out? I," he touched his own chest, "can tell you," eyebrow raise, nostril flare, chin tip, "with _expert carnal knowledge "_

"Like I want your sloppy seconds!" Sav waved both hands around. 

Almost laughing, Rick pushed aside the impression of Sav-the-garden-gnome, one with pinwheel arms windmilling in a stiff breeze, and retorted, "Don't be prissy, you've already had your fair share of..." he could have said much, much worse, "firsts." 

"Why d'you have to bring that up now?" Sav glanced at the drum riser, currently set to normal height about a metre and a half above the stage, even while he unconsciously adjusted himself in his faded jeans. 

"Is that for Viv or me?" Rick wouldn't let up on him. Either way, he was five seconds from having to make a similar move. Easy to bait Sav, but his own memories were stirring again, too. 

"Both, maybe," huffed the other man. "But you keep that to yourself, alright? I know he's working out fine but... can we handle any more line-up changes? Bloke doesn't need a reason to bolt shoved at him. So to speak."

Interesting. Sav knew exactly what he meant about Viv, and his answer indicated he'd thought about it at some length. "He won't. Are you planning on going anywhere?" He got a head-shake answer. "Neither am I. Nor Joe... not if you paid him a billion, trillion pounds. If you're still worried about Phil, talk to him. I think he's worked through... things." 'Things' had been touch and go for a while there. Rick had spent a year tip-toeing around Phil when not avoiding him entirely. 

Sav nodded. "Yeah, I think he has. Viv's good for him, and vice-versa. They get on now." 

"In more ways than one. So then...? Would you just make a move? Viv's gonna explode and you're worse." Unresolved sexual tension was a bitch. Rick, he'd had his times with the man in front of him. Right now he was quite sure he'd be the one to help him out of his funk, ennui, or whatever it was. That's what Rick did, and fuck the cost to his own immortal soul. Anything and everything for this band. It was just a matter of getting Sav to ask. 

The set of Sav's mouth spoke of his unwillingness. "All of that should stay... 'Let sleeping dogs lie'. You know?" 

"That's so much bullshit and you know it. How long's it been since you scratched that itch, huh?" What a contradiction, Sav deliberately denying himself when someone wanted him so much, and he'd more than hinted the attraction was mutual. 

"New Year's Day..." Rick was busy trying to figure out, based on what he remembered about everyone's where-abouts at the time, who it might have been. Not him.

"...1991," finished Sav. The look he shot Rick, tight-lipped and wild-eyed, said it all. 

But he had to confirm. "That was only a week before... Oh shit, Sav. Are you saying...? No." 

"Yes."

The last few years had been unsettling to say the least - Sav must have had his trust betrayed so many times, offering his own form of comfort and it hadn't been enough, not near enough. Everyone knew Joe's contributions to Steve's well-being - he made damned sure of it. Phil, the Twin, historical though that had been by the time the Hysteria era was well and truly over, everyone knew that story, too. Rick had gone down his own road. Sav? People called him the heart of the band and looked away, other than when they were looking at him and him alone, seeing what they wanted to see. Yet Rick knew that Sav only gave himself, his body, like that when he felt safe. It had nothing to do with which position he took in bed. How could one ever feel safe again when nothing, not all the fame and money, not music itself, not even talking and listening, love, sex, friendship, caring or anything Sav shared or offered had worked? 

Rick paused, inwardly debating. Talk about needing to clear one's palate. His gut reaction was to hug the other man, fold him in his embrace and hold on tight, tell him it would be alright, but he held back. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sav's tech approaching with the bass custom-painted to match their set. In a lowered voice, he asked. "Wanna?" It was almost rhetorical.

Once again, Sav glanced at the drum riser. "Mm... Gonna lean on you so hard tonight... up there," he added in case he was overheard. 

"Hmmph." Rick had to swallow a sudden mouthful of drool. "Do it. Won't let you fall." Ghost sensations allowed him a two-fold remembrance of holding Sav's much younger self after he'd made Rick a man, and the other presence on the side that was gone, long gone, but also never.

* * *

They'd given three encores that night, and the after-party had gone on and on. Finally, they managed to extract themselves and rode silently back to the hotel together. By unspoken agreement, they proceeded to Rick's room. His idea, his turf. Something like that. 

As if the time mattered at all, Sav looked at his watch. "It's after three already. Wake-up call is at eight." He unstrapped the wristband and set it on the bedside table, followed by his wallet. 

"Then we can sleep on the bus." True, it would be a driving day, twelve hours or more on the road.

"Yes..." Still fully clothed, Sav sat down on the edge of the bed, something in his posture with stiff arms held at his sides, palms down, stubborn and sulky. 

Meanwhile, Rick had left his clothes in a pile at his feet. Okay, fine, so he'd been hard since they left the party and his dick stood up more or less in Sav's face like an exclamation point, dusky-red and the exposed head shiny. "Don't give me that look. You said you'd lean on me hard... So do it. We can be sweet later."

"How long's it been?" Sav turned the same question from earlier on Rick, and the intonation said he meant, with Viv. Even so, it was Rick's body that his gaze was glued to now, a slow perusal full of heat. 

"Sure you want to know?" 

"Please tell me it wasn't yesterday or some shit. That'd just be wrong." 

"Last month." Technically, Rick had told the truth. One month had changed into the next a week prior. Whatever it took. 

Nodding, Sav plucked at the buttons of his shirt. Supplies got thrown on the bed. Necessary, though Rick wished they weren't. In some far-flung universe, they'd all dance and sing and have unfettered, uninhibited sex with whole, perfect bodies, no concept of things like diseases or unwanted pregnancies, pain or having to stretch one's partner's apparatus ever marring the experience. Adam and Eve. Adam and Steve. Right.

Between elongated blinks, Rick couldn't refrain from staring through his lashes at his mate's rapidly appearing body, which he could admit to wanting to lick every inch of. That would have to wait. "Like the first time," murmured Sav, confirming his thoughts. Rick positioned pillows where he knew he'd need them, then himself. Heat from behind, limbs grown into and filled out brushed up against him. This position would test his patience and his strength. 

A minute later, Sav had three fingers in him already. "You're such a liar. But I find I don't care." 

"You only asked about me and Viv." 

At last Sav laughed. "You bottom-y little slut!" 

"Shut your gob, it's not like I'm offering myself to the roadies," Rick retorted. "Anyway, someone's got to... bottom, I mean. Makes it easier on you." 

"And you. I mean... Here. Right now." 

"Mm-hm. Remember that, Sav." Rick heard the tearing sound, crinkle, and unmistakable condom-being-unrolled noises. Then, fast, no time for any more talk, he let himself yell out as the invasion spread him wide enough to burn. "Wait!" 

Sav groaned as if he were about to die a painful death and grabbed on hard, transferring the force of delayed thrusts to his hands, pulling at suddenly sweaty skin. Eight digits clawed around Rick's hipbones; two more pressed into the network of fascia just above his arse. 

Rick took two breaths to adjust and one to savour. It'd been a long time, since this particular scent had surrounded him. "Go!" he barked. 

Down even lower on his knees and elbow, fucked so hard and so good, his spot mercilessly prodded till he thought the room would burst into flames, Rick let himself beg for it, or as close as he got. His mouth had always been one to demand. "Give it, bring it... Yes, Sav! Just fuck me, you make it feel good, so good..." Toes spread in the sheets for purchase against the force of the pounding, he pushed back, spine going more and more supple, hips loose-jointed as they moved together. 

Draped over his back and moaning in his self-absorbed little sphere, Sav washed him with droplets of... sweat, spit, tears, what? Rick didn't want to think about a grown man crying while having sex but if he was, chalked it up to a strong emotional release. If he was honest, that was a sexist position. Other than Viv, who simply hadn't known them long enough for them to have heard all of his best sexual adventures, every one of them had had that experience with women at one time or another. Break-up sex. Make-up sex. Getting it on with the occasional imperfect chick who was so sex-starved that it was a forgone conclusion she'd be a crier. He'd called that one. 

He'd come of age on this dick, though, and under this man's hands and mouth. This wasn't some gold-digger or groupie. Sav had lost none of his skills. 'Time makes the heart' yada, yada, and the years' absence of this particular touch upon him made it better than Rick remembered. Physical joy washed through him, a groundswell which followed the play of fingers along his limbs, up his belly. Hot-cold-hot breath and long hair wisped across his upper back. More slick, wet... When the tongue got close to his empty socket, Rick warned Sav away, only the bassist would not be deterred. Nerves nobody ever touched anymore came alive. No one knew how sensitive the skin was that had been recreated in an unnatural configuration. Less and less now as years passed, he was sensate where he was missing, like phantom pain. Sav licked to the very point of his shoulder and over the scars; had he closed his eyes, Rick would have been certain he could have continued down his arm, traced the veins, sucked his fingers, He could feel every taste bud, every runnel of saltwater. 

Combined with being spread around Sav's dick and its dead-on, centred massage of his inner g-spot, he rode the edge of madness right along, no clue if he'd even come till a sharp pain around the back of his neck and the softness of 800-thread count against his dick set off his trigger. Did he cry? No. But he let it be known how good it was for him, with deep grunts and a crescendo of filthy little yowls. The compressed pleasure spiked and diffused through his body. It seemed like Sav was all around him, behind, above, inside, seizing as his warmth dispersed. 

They didn't speak after, only held on, each in the awareness that the other hadn't had enough. This, tonight, could be it. Fifty-fifty chance whether Sav would go back to denying himself or likewise hook up with Viv. While this moment between life and sterility, sex and death opened as their plane temporary of existence, soon to shutter with the sunrise, they would relive what they could, a re-choreographed _pas de deux_. 

After a while, Rick flopped onto his left side. He reached out with his hand, and with his mouth. Before, they'd been too desperate and, in Sav's case, too skittish. Affectionate nuzzles became an idle kiss or two, then snogging for real with their eyes wide open, but even that didn't last for long. For reasons unknown, Sav lowered his lids and lay still while Rick found salty skin and indulged in the addiction of it. Lips, tongue, lick and suck. Those tiny rose-brown nipples stood up for him, which he painted with his taste buds till Sav squirmed and moaned, rubbing his butt on the sheet. Down his sternum, to his flat belly which shivered in the wake of spit and a whirlpool rim into his navel. Rick licked the trail of fine hairs below, down and down into musk and risen, hanging heat; Sav's thighs pushed apart to give him room. "Sweet." Truth. Rick sucked the sugar-honey slick like liquid gold. Couldn't get enough. Couldn't imagine that Sav wasn't still loaded to bursting, his balls like ripe fruit as he tested each then both, gliding back up far enough to catch his squeezings. As once had been done to him, he explored lower with one cautious finger. A different sort of heat, there. He made a noise of inquiry. 

Sav froze and hesitated, and then, plainly if in a whisper, he asked for it: "Do it, Rick. Need you..." 

"Yes... I know you do. Course you do, poor lad, two, going on three years and no one to love you that way." Rolling Sav over, he did it all again. Rick leaned his hardening crotch against the bassist's arse while working from his messy hair all down his back, panting hard, deliberately licking up new-sprung sweat. "Taste so good, Sav," he said, reverent. He did, taste: every spinal spike covered in tendons and muscle, ribs and two hollows, down into the valley of the shadow, into the pit, till his entire world reduced to pitiful hiccups and the pulsing around his tongue. 

It couldn't go on forever, though. His tongue was tired. Sav was pushing against his face, groaning, and it didn't take a brain surgeon to know what he was asking for. If he'd been one more degree of stupid, Rick would have dispensed with the condom, but he had no idea of Sav's status much less his own. 

Still, he hesitated. Sav turned to face him and snatched the foil square from his hand. "Wanna ride it!" he hissed. 

Rick understood: his bandmate needed control, to gain the upper hand in some way at the same time as being penetrated. He nodded. In the next instant, he got pushed onto his back. Latex rolled over the crucial inches. Above, Sav straddled him. A layer of lube splashed on him almost cold, then Sav was reaching behind himself and he sank down, almost virgin tight or so Rick would have imagined - maybe he should have stretched him a little with something bigger than his tongue. He felt a small sting of his own deficiency. 

Looking down and riding hard, curly mop hanging around his ecstatic face, Sav braced his palms and spread his fingers on Rick's chest. It lasted minutes; it seemed like hours. Up, down, slow slow glide, balls bouncing and thighs strained. Sav keened louder and lower with every deeper and deeper thrust up into him. The desperate sounds were wordless, but Rick knew what he meant. Once Rick got his hand wrapped around him, Sav shook his way to orgasm. His bare cock shot appreciation as far as Rick's eyebrows. 

That was it, the slick droplets landing scatter-shot all up his chest and belly did Rick in. He emptied himself violently, having held back to the far edge of restraint. When he came to, he perceived the stickiness on his chin, lips, and... "I think... some's... in m'left nostril," he giggled. 

Sav spared him one surprised blink and burst into laughter. "I suppose... want me to... lick you clean," he wheezed.

"Could be worse, considering where my tongue's just been..."

Sav dismounted or more like toppled over and plopped on his back, both of them too breathless to banter.

 

When he could speak again, Rick asked, "Feel better?" They lay side by side, still sweaty and panting a little.

"Oh, I don't know. Yes and no." Sav kept his eyes closed in what Rick knew was his avoidance tactic. 

Nevertheless, he asked, "How so?" and reached for his cigarettes on the bedside table. Sitting up, he stuck one in his mouth and flicked his lighter. After a long drag and exhale, he tapped Sav's upper arm with the pack. 

"Thanks, mate." At last, Sav glanced at Rick however briefly and helped himself to a smoke. 

They didn't speak again till Rick was stubbing his out in the ashtray he'd set between them. "You gonna answer my question?" he asked. 

"Been trying to think of how."

"It's not that complicated." 

"Yeah, it is. Don't oversimplify everything." Having been resting on his side with the sheet drawn up to his waist while he smoked, Sav sat up now and put his out. Faint, lazy blue clouds swirled around them. "Physically, yes. Better now. The, uh, release was long overdue, in retrospect. Needed a good shag, and all those things we did, Rick. With someone who... who knows..." He spoke barely louder than a whisper. 

"Who better than me, then?" 

"No one, which also means you're the worst."

"Thank you so much," Rick made his voice desert-dry.

"Not like that, I "

"I miss him too, Sav. We all do." 

The hum of acknowledgement in a minor key said this wasn't the right answer. "You're the only one who gets it. I feel... naked around you. Even now." 

While Rick was sorely tempted to turn Sav's choice of words into a joke, he refrained and pulled his side of the sheet up, too. "Well, don't. Or like, know it's the same for me." 

Sav looked surprised at this, and Rick tried to explain. "I can't afford to be sensitive. If I show any sign of weakness, it's always attributed to..." Rick laid his right hand on his left shoulder, "and before that, it was my age. We all went through hell, heaven and hell you gotta admit, and it's not over. Our lives are not over. But there's me... and there's you... I'm not saying we should be together other than in a larger sense, like we all are but... do you know what we just did?"

"I think that's obvious." 

Shaking his head and tucking a few errant strands behind his ear, Rick said gently, "A memorial."

"With sex? Come on! Even for us, that's a bit twisted."

"Is it? Is that why you've been avoiding it?"

Sav didn't answer, but the way his eyes cut right through Rick with unaccustomed sharpness, agreed. 

"You know me by now, Sav. I'm here. In case it's not over." 

"Right." 

"Yes, 'right'! The man who stands in his place beside you is nothing like him. He's got a dirty mouth on him but he won't hurt you like that."

"Who are you, his pimp?"

"No! Take it or leave it but you know I'm fucking right."

"...Fucking...?" Now Sav was being facetious. 

"What? 'Making love?'" 

"That's not a curse word, but it might as well be. Yuck." Sav's squinched-up face left no doubt on his opinion of the euphemism. 

"Joe seems to like it. The expression," baited Rick. "How many song's it in? At least three."

"So does my mum. Ew." 

"Don't bring up anyone's mum in here! But have you ever...? Made love?" 

Another cringe. Both sarcastic and serious, Sav finally collected his thoughts. "Need you ask? It's better this way," he gestured to encompass the here and now, "because what I needed is what you needed; I could give you that, too. Does that make sense? Forget the past in the act, or revel in it, or both. At least we didn't have to get drunk off our arses or high. It's worse for that same reason: We're just animals. Sniffing each other out."

"Licking." Rick had been a bit overzealous. Well, there'd been no complaints. 

"Biting," Sav finished. "Sorry about that, I went too far." The imprint of his teeth surrounded by bruises would decorate the back of Rick's neck for some while.

"I'm not." 

"Keep your hair down." 

As in, no ponytail. If Rick had his way, he'd get the marks tattooed like a signature, but of course, that wasn't done. "I will. And a stiff upper lip." 

"A stiff... something." 

"Oh, you noticed?" Rick asked mildly, getting a snort in return. 

"Duh...!" Sav turned it into four syllables. "Must be nice, but then you're not even thirty yet, lucky sod." 

"Hush!" Landmark birthday coming up soon: something Rick didn't want to think about right now. He had better things to do between now and morning. 

Fin.


End file.
